Thread: What do I need to maintain a straight?

Originally Posted by Stubear

All you need at the start is a strop for use before (and after if you want) the shave.

As people progress they sometimes purchase or make a second strop for use with pastes, or they get a barbers hone from eBay. Some people get bitten by the honing bug and end up with a load of hones, in which case they might use them.

An easy way to go would be to pick up a barber hone on eBay for touch ups. You can get them for around $25, and just do half a dozen strokes on it once the razor starts to pull.

Straights are definately the way to go though, and my skin has never been better!

so...pasted strop and barber hone is just the same?

Originally Posted by jankrix

so...pasted strop and barber hone is just the same?

Here's a quick outline on what's going on wrt maintenance:

Strop: used before every shave to condition the blade. It cleans the edge and aligns the serrations. If you shave without stropping, you generally end up with razor burn.

After about 10-20-30 shaves (difference depends on the razor and your beard, etc), the edge needs to be touched up. You'll know this because even after stropping you'll feel the razor start to pull when you shave. There are several ways to touch up a razor:


1) A second strop with paste on it. There are different pastes to use, you can find that info in the wiki.

2) Barber's hone. Nobody makes these new anymore, need to find them on ebay.

3) Finishing hone like a belgian coticule (yellow one, using water only). Wiki has a good section on how to use the coticule. It acts different depending on if you use water (finishing mode), or with a slurry (honing mode). There are a bunch of other finishing hones you can use besides the coticule. You can go to the "hones" section on this site and ask what to look for for a finishing hone.

Then, once or twice a year you need to rehone the razor when touching up the razor does not work any more. You can either buy another hone or two to do this (or if you are lucky and have a good coticule, you can use that with slurry), or send it to a honemeister on this site who will hone it for you for a nominal charge.

Why does stropping/ touching up stop working? Eventually the geometry of the bevel of the razor's edge will get out of wack from use (curves too much) and needs to be restablished.


Hope that helps,
-Chief

Originally Posted by BHChieftain

Here's a quick outline on what's going on wrt maintenance:

Strop: used before every shave to condition the blade. It cleans the edge and aligns the serrations. If you shave without stropping, you generally end up with razor burn.

After about 10-20-30 shaves (difference depends on the razor and your beard, etc), the edge needs to be touched up. You'll know this because even after stropping you'll feel the razor start to pull when you shave. There are several ways to touch up a razor:


1) A second strop with paste on it. There are different pastes to use, you can find that info in the wiki.

2) Barber's hone. Nobody makes these new anymore, need to find them on ebay.

3) Finishing hone like a belgian coticule (yellow one, using water only). Wiki has a good section on how to use the coticule. It acts different depending on if you use water (finishing mode), or with a slurry (honing mode). There are a bunch of other finishing hones you can use besides the coticule. You can go to the "hones" section on this site and ask what to look for for a finishing hone.

Then, once or twice a year you need to rehone the razor when touching up the razor does not work any more. You can either buy another hone or two to do this (or if you are lucky and have a good coticule, you can use that with slurry), or send it to a honemeister on this site who will hone it for you for a nominal charge.

Why does stropping/ touching up stop working? Eventually the geometry of the bevel of the razor's edge will get out of wack from use (curves too much) and needs to be restablished.


Hope that helps,
-Chief

hmmm things are getting clear now, especially the last part about the bevel thanks mate!

hope it's okay to jump onto this thread.

I did a search on ebay after reading this thread for "barber hone" and found several really inexpensive "current" ones for like $9 and then a few vintage ones for maybe $20. That's still less than the $25-30 that's mentioned above. I just don't want to get the wrong kind.

Has anyone gotten the "Zeepk" brand of hones?

thanks. I'm new, btw, in case you can't tell :-)

Originally Posted by kaiyen

hope it's okay to jump onto this thread.

I did a search on ebay after reading this thread for "barber hone" and found several really inexpensive "current" ones for like $9 and then a few vintage ones for maybe $20. That's still less than the $25-30 that's mentioned above. I just don't want to get the wrong kind.

Has anyone gotten the "Zeepk" brand of hones?

thanks. I'm new, btw, in case you can't tell :-)

stay away from zeepk is closer to brick then hone

and search razor hone too

thanks for the tip on the zeepk or whatever it is. so razor hone or barber hone should be fine? any of those?

Originally Posted by kaiyen

hope it's okay to jump onto this thread.

I did a search on ebay after reading this thread for "barber hone" and found several really inexpensive "current" ones for like $9 and then a few vintage ones for maybe $20. That's still less than the $25-30 that's mentioned above. I just don't want to get the wrong kind.

Has anyone gotten the "Zeepk" brand of hones?

thanks. I'm new, btw, in case you can't tell :-)

I do not believe there are any 'current' barber hones. You shouldn't believe everything an ebay seller claims, 99.9% of them are absolutely incompetent as far as straight razors go and would say anything that they feel is going to make them more money.
No matter where you buy, you should be concerned primarily with the seller and not so much with the item or the price, or you will most likely get much less than what you pay for.

thanks. I will look for a good seller who seems to know about razors and get a good hone from that person. seems like I'll likely go with the modular strop paddle, too. I think I'm set now...just gotta learn how not to cut my head off.

thanks.